Shikarpur district (Sindhi: شڪارپور) (Urdu: ضلع شڪارپور) is a district in the Sindh province of Pakistan. The city of Shikarpur is the capital. It is spread over an area of 2,512 km², according to the 1998 census of Pakistan it had a population of 880,438 of which 23.51% were urban.^[1] Before the rule of Britishers, Sindh has three major districts, on the top Hyderabad was furnished and at the second number largest and populous, developed and rich was Shikarpur district and on the third number Karachi was the developed and famous. Shikarpur in the united India, the Reserve Bank of India was established and the building of bank is still exist in shiakrpur city. The famous Poets of shikarpur are Saami, Bedal Masroor and Shaikh Ayaz. The famous personalities of the Shikarpur are Shaheed Allah Bux Soomro, Sir Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah, Deen Mohammad Wafai,A.K.Brohi, Junaid Ahmed Soomro, Iftikar Ahmed Soomro, Imtiaz Ahmed shaikh, Makbool Ahmed Shaikh,MIR Abdul Nabi Khan Mengal, Mir Abdul Ghafoor Khan Mengal, Late Mir Muhammad Ayub Khan Mengal, Dr.Ghulam Rasool Khan Mengal, Mr.Barkat Ali Khan Mengal,Agha nawab Khan tareen.

The Shahi Bagh, which stands neglected today, was known for its thriving vegetation and scented flowers. At one time Shahi Bagh had a zoo with large population of lions, cheetahs, bears and wild boars. These animals were later shifted to Karachi Zoo. The garden had a wooden pavilion that was designed by Perston Phel and constructed by Sir W. Merewether in September 1871. Many other public and private gardens and open spaces of Shikarpur have vanished.
The Covered Bazaar, Contemporary cities of that time - Bukhara, Samarkand, and Istanbul - had bazaars with covered streets. Shikarpur's main bazaar too was covered.The standard of education moving high day by day.The long and narrow bazaar lined with shops on both sides almost passes through the centre of the old city.
The standard of education moving high day by day, Public transport facility is satifactroy and condition of underwater is good, water can get through hand pump.The political atmosphere is very high, currently Aftab shahban mirani and Ghos bux mehar are nominated as MNA from the district Shikarpur,Engineers and doctors are working in the most important parts of the country

Administration

The district is subdivided into 4 talukas these are:^[2]

• Garhi Yasin
• Khanpur
• Lakhi
• Shikarpur

As per the 1998 census of the country, Shikarpur district had a population of 0.880 million out of which 0.212 million (24%) was urban. Following are the demographic details of the district:
Religion
Islam: 98.03%
Hinduism: 1.80%
Christianity: 0.09%
Sikhism: 0.05%
undefined: 0.04%, Hindus are 6.14% from the urban population of district.
Languages
Sindhi: 75.77%
Balochi: 12.01%
Brohi: 6.35%
Seraiki: 3.60%
Urdu: 1.81%
Punjabi: 0.24%
Pashto: 0.22%

[edit] History

Shikarpur has always been an important place as commanding the trade route through the Bolan Pass, and its merchants have dealings with many towns in Central Asia. It has seven gates like Hathi Gate, Lucky Gate etc. It is famous for its pickles and sweets. It has a large market and manufactures cotton cloth and pottery. Because of its rich history. Shikarpur used to be called an "Old Paris" because of unknown reason while some people thinks that it was called an "Old Paris" because of its modern building of that time but some things that it was because of some perfume or attur industry in the Shikarpur. At that time there was a popular caste Dahani was active and the chief of the caste was Sardar Ghulam Bashir Khan Dahani. Shikarpur is the most historical place of sindh, it was a place of Shikar means Hunting it was a place for hunting for the people because it had a large forest with the lot of animals so many people came here for hunting. This city has also another significance which is trading, it i s famous for its 1t banking system in the Asia.^[3]

Geography

Shikarpur District borders the districts of Larkana, Jacobabad, Khairpur and Sukkur. Two National Highways (N-65 & N-55) intersect the city of Shikarpur, making it the junction points of 4 provinces.
Chak, Beechangi a town in taluka Lakhi, has an important place in the district politically, socially and economically besides the main Shikarpur city.its Paris of the Past
Mian-Jo-Goth,a historical village in Taluka Khanpur is the second biggest town in Khanpur Taluka.

Infrastructure

Shikarpur District was famous for education and other civic amenities until the first half of the 20th Century, throughout undivided India these included, Rau Bahadur Udhau-Das Tara Chand Hospital, Heeranand Ganga Bai Ladies Hospital, Chella Ram and Seetal Das College, two old High Schools now known as school No:1 & 2 and Girls College here, are few dignified and marvellous towers, showing outstanding standards of Shikarpurians during that era. For security the city was then protected by seven gates & one window. Now, infra-structure being old constructed, is experiencing lot of problems. Heavy inflow of rural populace, has further burdened this old system, needing immediate over-hauling. District Shikarpur is having total road length of 920.0 kilo meters, including 125.0 kilo meters National Highways and 195.0 kilo meters Provincial Highways. It is thus deficient in road density (0.35 Km2 ) compared with recognized international parameters of development, ( 1km2 ). During last few years, the creeping development activity has taken pace and 71.0 kilo meters of road, 94 nos. schools and number of schemes in drainage, health and other sectors have been completed, under various Programmes. Basically agrarian economy of district Shikarpur, is dependent upon non-perennial irrigation system, so the district is practically in Semi Drought Conditions always. Last spell of drought has further worsened this situation, creating heavy unemployment and unsustainable poverty, which without doubt creates serious law & order situations.